RISK SUMMARY: LAOS

This article focuses on the political and economic risk in Laos. After 15 years in prison, two Lao political dissidents, former deputy economy minister Latsami Khamphoui and a former justice minister official Pheng Sakchittaphong, were released in December 2004. Laos's short-term political rating remains on 75.0, despite the release of the two dissidents. At the end of 2004 the Lao kip strengthened against the American dollar, reversing the downward trend which characterised the earlier part of the year and allowing the currency to finish the year at approximately the same strength as which it had started trading.

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